“Then who’s Ray?”
He leaned back, breathing like a dragon about to roar. “In re.” He spelled out the words. “It’s part of the subject line of a legal memorandum.”
“Right, sorry, I misheard. Never mind. Carry on.”
Back at her desk, she put a piece of clean white paper in the typewriter and looked down at her notepad. She’d tried her very best to keep up, but the squiggles meant nothing to her. Steno wasn’t something she’d ever learned, so she’d simply written the important words as quickly as possible and skipped the unimportant ones.
An hour later, Mr. Huckle came out of his office. “Where’s that memo?”
She yanked it out of the typewriter carriage and held it out to him, then sank back into her chair once his door was closed. She waited.
Thirty seconds later, she heard him screaming on the phone to someone. Kathleen. That was the human resources person’s name. At least now she knew. The woman tore down the hall and asked Virginia to follow her back to her office.
Virginia was already making excuses to tell the temp agency. The man was unreasonable, it wasn’t a good fit, personality-wise. She’d do better next time.
Kathleen sat behind her desk and folded her hands in front of her. “Mr. Huckle said you have no idea what you’re doing.”
Virginia shook her head. “I’m still catching up on my stenography, you see. Maybe if he spoke a little slower I could do it. I’m happy to try again.”
“You’re wasting everyone’s time.” She looked Virginia straight on, but not with anger.
With pity.
Somehow, in her head, Virginia had imagined herself as one of those fancy secretaries in the temp agency ad, sporting a lithe figure and knowing smile that emanated capability and discretion. When in fact she was a middle-aged frump in a pilled sweater set, a laughingstock. Ever since the divorce was finalized a year earlier, she’d tried so hard to maintain control. To prove to Ruby that they’d be just fine, you wait and see. When in fact their world had been shattered by Chester’s desertion.
She didn’t want to think about that, but the images came flooding to mind anyway. Ruby popping out of her room, singing some bittersweet Donny Osmond song, while she and Chester stood at the kitchen counter like frozen statues, knowing they were about to rip her world to shreds. Ruby had instantly sensed something was wrong. “Did I do something?” she’d asked.
Then, as Chester explained the situation, that they were getting divorced, Virginia had watched her crumple. That was the right word, the only word. Crumple. Bit by bit, muscle by muscle, a puzzled agony had worked its way down her darling daughter’s face: Her forehead crinkled, her nose went red, her chin wobbled. The worst was trying to keep her own expression calm and capable, to show that this was just another day, nothing was wrong, we’d all be fine. Ruby’s eyes went pink and wet, and she ran out of the room, slamming her bedroom door shut.
They’d done that to her. Chester had done that to her. Virginia would never stop trying to fix it for Ruby. To make up for the devastation they’d wrought.
Now, Virginia tried to keep her own face from crumpling, but the effort only made it worse, and finally she let out a strangled, choking sound. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking. My husband is a lawyer. My ex-husband, I mean. I thought I could handle it.”
Kathleen looked up. “You’re divorced?”
“Yes.”
A hushed moment passed, like in church right before the choir begins to sing. “Me, too.”
The woman looked down at some papers on her desk. “There’s another position available, one that doesn’t require typing or steno. Would you be interested?”
Even if she were locked in a windowless room to file papers eight hours a day, she’d take it. Something to do each day, a place to report to. A reason to wake up in the morning. “Of course. Thank you.” Kathleen’s sympathy only made her want to weep more. “Do you mind if I freshen up first?”
“Ask Annie out front for a key to the bathroom. Take your time.”
The receptionist yanked open a drawer full of keys and handed one to Virginia. Outside in the hallway, Virginia turned left and then right, trying to remember the woman’s mumbled directions. Around the corner, then third door on the left. Or was it the fourth? She tried the third door with no luck. On the fourth, her key slid in the lock.
She stepped inside and fumbled for the light switch, expecting to see a row of porcelain sinks and grungy tile walls. Instead, she stood in a small foyer, where a painted sign along one wall read THE GRAND CENTRAL SCHOOL OF ART in gold letters. Handsome art deco ceiling pendants threw a warm light down a long hallway off to her left. She ventured farther inside, curious, her despair momentarily forgotten.
At the first doorway, it was as if the art school were still open, a dozen easels at the ready for the next day’s class, paintings and drawings hung on one wall, a ceramic vase on a table in the center of the room. The only sign of abandonment was the coating of dust on everything, the vase an ashy green. A faint scent of chemicals made her sneeze, or maybe that was the dust. A large storage cabinet for artwork lined one wall, a mix of slots for framed canvases at the bottom and shelving above.
She checked each room, counting five studios in total, amazed at her find: a mummified art school at the top of Grand Central. The last room was some kind of storage area, filled with wooden crates stacked haphazardly on top of one another. The crate closest to her had been opened; a crowbar lay on the floor nearby. Inside, Virginia discovered course catalogs, accounting ledgers, and notebooks filled with names of students and tuition figures. A winter catalog from 1928 offered a snapshot of life right before the Depression, when a portrait painting class cost fourteen dollars a month.
She shouldn’t linger; Kathleen was waiting for her and she had yet to find the bathroom. But as she turned to go, an entire wall filled with artwork stopped her in her tracks. Still lifes, portraits, landscapes, some on yellowed canvas and others on brittle, tea-colored paper. Her eye was drawn to a familiar tableau that Virginia recognized as a Renoir, the festive one of the boating party, but in this version a figure clutched a bottle of Coke, of all things.
Surrounded by such ruined beauty, the faded artifacts of students who had once worked diligently and were now God knew where, Virginia burst into tears. At her recent failures, at the way her world was no longer within her control.
She grabbed a tissue from her purse. As she wiped under her eyes, she caught sight of a sketch of women wearing vintage tailored suits, like something from an old newspaper ad. For the Well-Dressed Secretary was written at the very top. While most of the models looked off to the side, the one in the center stared straight out. Her posture—shoulders flung back, chin raised—spoke of strength and character. On the bottom right-hand corner the name Clara Darden was scrawled.
Virginia struck the same pose, laughing at herself, but doing so gave her a burst of energy and confidence. Whatever Kathleen had in store, she could dig down and find the courage to face it. Today’s wasn’t the first humiliation she’d faced since her divorce, and it probably wouldn’t be her last. But at least she was putting herself out there in the world.
When Virginia returned, to her surprise, Kathleen led her out of the offices, back down the elevator, to the concourse level. She pointed over the crowds. “We need some help in the information booth.”
“The information booth? Right in the middle of the station?”